Uncategorized
- Physics
Complexity by way of simplicity
Researchers have demonstrated a new way to simplify some intricate patterns whose extreme complexity has convinced theoretical physicist Stephen Wolfram that traditional science can't explain many important natural phenomena.
- Anthropology
Grannies give gift of longer lives
Data from two 18th- and 19th-century farming communities supports the theory that child care assistance from grandmothers has contributed to the evolution of extended human longevity.
- Health & Medicine
Drug for migraines helps some patients
An experimental drug that slows blood flow in the brain knocks out migraine headaches in some people.
- Animals
Hornbills know which monkey calls to heed
Hornbills can tell the difference between two kinds of alarm calls given by monkeys.
- Planetary Science
Revisiting a forgotten planet
Engineers are readying a NASA spacecraft for a May 11 launch to Mercury, one of the least-explored planets in the solar system.
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19393
The word love needs to be more carefully defined in the study described in this article. Love may also mean finding the economic resources to give a child a better future. Wolf’s description of Taiwanese mothers giving their children away when “socially acceptable alternatives” were available is reminiscent of our society’s advice to young unwed […]
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Mother and Child Disunion
Data on extensive giveaways of daughters by their mothers in northern Taiwan a century ago may challenge influential theories of innate maternal sentiments.
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The Bad Seed
Researchers are racing to identify tumor-forming stem cells in skin, lung, pancreatic, and many other cancers.
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19392
Your article describes how the male bean weevil’s spiked reproductive part damages the female’s reproductive tract to reduce the chance that she will mate with other males. Could this also explain the barbs on the organ of the domesticated tom cat? I have read that the pain of copulation induces the female’s ovulation, but I […]
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19391
The article about tuberculosis states that Robert Koch in 1882 was the first person to link a particular microbe to a disease. References indicate that Armauer Hansen demonstrated in 1868 that Mycobacterium leprae was associated with the tissues of leprosy patients. He may not have had Koch’s postulates to prove this linkage, but many credit […]
- Math
Mapping Scientific Frontiers
Can computer visualization help identify turning points and milestones in scientific discovery?
- Humans
Letters from the March 13, 2004, issue of Science News
Dry hole? “Tapping sun’s light and heat to make hydrogen” (SN: 1/17/04, p. 46: Tapping sun’s light and heat to make hydrogen) seems to be delivering good news for the environment: “Clean” hydrogen can be produced from water using solar energy. This seems to me, however, to be even more horrifying than the burning of […]
